The air is fragrant with the sweet, sickly odour of brewing: it's hard to believe, looking at the frothy beige scum pressing up against the window of the wash tun, that in 12 years' time the liquid below will have turned into a fragrant, sweet liquor that costs £27.99 a bottle.

Douglas Campbell, master distiller for Tomatin Distillery, is showing me around his workplace. We have already passed the huge malt mill where malted barley is ground up to produce a coarse flour called grist, and the mash tuns, where the grist is mixed with hot water, at 65°C, 72°C and 90°C, to extract a sugary liquid called wort that is used for the brewing process.

Now we are standing by the wash backs – 12 huge metal containers with portholes and a submarine-type hatch opening through which 100kg of Mauri Pinnacle yeast is tipped to start the fermentation process. Giant arms rotate in the mixture to break down the bubbles and stop the froth rising to the hatches, but some is still seeping out from a couple of the wash tuns.

Tomatin can truly claim to have a strong community spirit in all senses. Most of the 50 people who work for the distillery live on the premises in heavily subsidised, if basic, accommodation (some, including Campbell, still don't have central heating - and this is northern Scotland), and for many it has been a family affair. Campbell, a quietly spoken man who has worked at Tomatin Distillery for 50 years, clearly feels he was born and bred for the job: "I started working here when I was 15, in 1961. My father worked here as a cooper, my wife worked here for 10 years as secretary for the managing director, and my son works here now in the warehouse. I was born in Tomatin, I belong to Tomatin."

The distillery started in the 15th century as an illicit still, visited by drovers who stopped to fill their flasks at the old laird's house on their way to the market at the village of Tomatin (to rhyme with satin). In 1897 a formal distillery was commissioned on the site to take advantage of the sweet water from the Alt-na-Frith (Free Burn), which rises up from within the Monadhliath mountains, some 16 miles south of Inverness.

Nowadays, Campbell works as an ambassador for Tomatin, visiting whisky trade fairs and conferences around the world to promote the brand: only 2% of the distillery's production is sold in the UK, with most going to the US, Sweden and Japan.

But he started at the very bottom of the organisation doing clerical work, entering the weights of empty and full casks in a ledger under the scrutiny of a customs and excise officer. "After that, the managing director, John McDonald, took me under his wing and gave me the chance to work in different parts of the distillery. I did mashing for three or four years, distilling for a couple of years, worked in the warehouses. Eventually, I was one of the charge hands getting casks ready for dispatch.

"We used to have our own maltings, and I did a little bit of turning of the malt. You steep the barley in water to germinate, and turn it twice a day with a big paddle. Then you heat it to stop the germination. But we stopped doing that ourselves in 1969."

Controversially, he adds: "The distilleries that still malt themselves will tell you it makes a difference to the taste, but I don't think it really has a big impact. The water, the stills and the casks are far more important: 70% to 80% of the flavour comes from the casks. That's why we still have our own cooperage." Most distilleries buy their barley from the same sources, supporting his claim.

It seems improbable that the shape of the still – the giant copper pots where the wash (the alcoholic liquid resulting from the brewing process) is concentrated through evaporation until a crystal clear, colourless liquid of the desired strength is produced – affects the flavour. But Campbell insists that a rounder, flatter shape gives you a sweeter taste, while a longer, thinner one produces a drier flavour.

I notice a wooden ball dangling off a piece of string along the neck of the still. Most have windows to allow the distiller to see inside, explains Campbell, but at Tomatin you use the wooden ball to whack the still. "It makes a different noise if the vapour is rising," he says. "It's traditional."

Distillation takes place in two stages: the wash still, which transforms the wash into low wine with about 21% alcohol, and the spirit still, which concentrates the liquid to "new make", with a strength of between 60% and 73%. The alcohol content varies at the beginning and end of the second distillation and is tested in a spirit safe – a padlocked cupboard with a glass front in which the distiller manipulates the liquids into glass beakers and sees the alcohol content without being able to touch or taste them. Anything below 60%, or above 73%, is siphoned off and mixed with the low wines of the next distillation to go through the whole process again.

We move on to the storage warehouses. Most of Tomatin's casks are stored in a modern warehouse where barrels are stacked 12-high on a metal rack for at least three years, the legal minimum, while some are stored for up to 40 or 50 years. But Campbell prefers the original warehouse, where the casks are closer to the earth, for the storage of Tomatin's limited editions. It is dark and cool in here, and it smells like the old-fashioned vintners my dad used to take me to as a child – a heady and comforting smell of wood and alcohol.

"An average of 2% of the liquid is lost from each barrel, more from those barrels that are higher up because they are warmer," says Campbell. "It's called the angel's share."

While working at a distillery must seem a dream to anyone who appreciates whisky, some elements have – in the past – been unpleasant to say the least. Campbell used to have to climb into the washbacks and stills to clean them out – mostly with water but sometimes disinfectant, a claustrophobic and dirty job now done by machinery.

The hours were horrendous. Campbell used to work six days a week, on a 24-hour rota, including nights (the brewing process didn't stop because you wanted to sleep). Staff got just two weeks' holiday a year. "You finished at 6am on Saturday and started again at 6am on Sunday, and that was your longest period off," he says.

Today the process is less punishing, with different schedules and increased mechanisation: although the whisky is brewed and distilled by just six people compared with double that in the 70s, they work eight-hour shifts and get weekends off plus five to seven weeks' holiday, Campbell points out with a faint, dismissive sniff.

But some things don't change. It was – still is – ferociously cold in the warehouses. Even though within spitting distance of the A9, staff had to be helicoptered in and out one year, the snow was so bad.

Campbell continued working his way up to brewer, then becoming assistant manager in 1989 and distillery manager in the early 90s. Although his own career progress was smooth, the company's own fortunes have been less steady. The distillery had been producing 12m litres of whisky a year in the 70s, mostly for blending. But during the recession of the early 80s, demand plummeted. It was left with a lot of stock it couldn't shift and, in 1984, went into liquidation.

The liquidators allowed the distillery to keep production ticking over: two to three months' work spread over the year. It worked: in 1986 Japanese company Takara Shuzo bought Tomatin, and it owns 84% today.

Now it produces about 2.5m litres a year, and although some still goes for blending (distilleries swap barrels on a like-for-like basis, rather than exchanging money), most is now sold under the Tomatin brands, including 12, 15, 18 and 25-year-old malts, and its own blends – Antiquary and The Talisman.

The role of master distiller was created two years ago, and Campbell travels around the major whisky markets of the world: when I ring him to arrange the interview, he is in Los Angeles. The day after I meet him he is off to Belgium, or is it the Netherlands? He goes to Japan at least twice a year, where he is particularly impressed by the barmen: "They take their job very seriously and have a very high understanding of the history, production and taste," he says.

The next step is to build the brand in the UK. "There are a lot of people very passionate about not just Scotch, but whisky as a whole. They have a very romantic notion of Scotland: whisky is ingrained in the culture. We live a very privileged life."

Curriculum vitae

Salary From £14,000 a year for a warehouseman to £50,000 for the master distiller. Benefits are good with a final salary pension scheme and those living on site benefit from a big discount on accommodation.

Hours It depends on the job, but those involved in whisky production at Tomatin do eight-hour shifts.

Work-life balance Much better these days, but if you're a key worker you have to live on site, which may not be convenient if you have school-aged children or a partner who likes a more urban lifestyle.

Best thing "Tasting all the different whisky. We've got stock going back to the Sixties."

Worst thing "It used to be the long hours. The shifts were meant to last eight hours, but you couldn't get people to stay in the job, so you had to cover for up to 12 hours. Now it's the cold weather. Last year we had snow from the first week of December until the last week of April."